Hook Up the TV

Unboxing and hooking up the TV is a lot more work, but come on! This is the 21st Century!

The TV reflects that. It's a modern flat panel, as wide as your outstretched arms, big enough be a bit of a struggle to hang up by yourself, but you manage. It definitely isn't something Uncle Leroy would have gotten you. You probably have your late grandmother to thank for it. She did make some rather unusual demands in her will, including forcing Leroy to install a jacuzzi in his main compound.

As you install it, you realize that this TV is actually a smart TV, capable of browsing the internet, even from here. You bet Uncle Leroy doesn't know about that feature. He'd probably throw a fit if he knew such a "compromise of secrecy" was possible on his prepper compound. {if Worry >= 60} Considering that the internet may harbor your original's killers, Leroy might have a point.{endif}

You decide to just tune in to TV channels for now. The first to pop up is a soap opera in Spanish, which you don't speak. You change the channel. A rerun of some black-and-white show is playing with terrible picture quality (everything keeps getting pixelated). Finally, you find a news channel. They're just finishing a weather report: highs in the lower sixties (Fahrenheit, of course) are predicted alongside overnight lows just above freezing--overall pretty mild for the mountains in autumn. There's no mention of the end of civilization as you know it, so that's a good sign. After the weather, the news comes on, touching on a few mundane stories (a female hitchhiker reported missing in the woods near here, the stock market is slightly down, one celebrity is getting married, another is getting divorced), but spending the bulk of their time on politics and the two leading candidates for president who seem to be locked in a contest to see which of them can be the biggest scumbag. You groan. "I forgot it was an election year! Maybe I should just stay in the bunker till its over," you say, and you're only half joking.

You switch to another channel (an infomercial on some kind of laundry soap) and mute the TV, mulling over what you've seen. Obviously the world has not ended. In fact it seems to be getting along just fine without you...which is a little disappointing, but what did you expect?

You debate whether to turn the TV off or risk logging into the internet.